The course is a very well structured look at the attacker life cycle and how to defend each stage so that even if defense fails, detection is faster.

Taz Wake, Halkyn Consulting

Course content and labs were fantastic! Very good in identifying malicious actions taken and what to look out for -- great blue team related material.

Jason Thurott, Hyatt

You just got hired to help our virtual organization "SyncTechLabs" build out a cyber security capability. On your first day, your manager tells you: "We really don't know where to start! We looked at some recent cyber security trend reports and we feel like we've lost the plot. Advanced persistent threats, ransomware, denial of service...We're not even sure where to start!"

Cyber threats are on the rise: ransomware is affecting small, medium and large enterprises alike, while state-sponsored adversaries are attempting to obtain access to your most precious crown jewels. SEC599: Defeating Advanced Adversaries - Implementing Kill Chain Defenses will arm you with the knowledge and expertise you need to detect and respond to today's threats. Recognizing that a prevent-only strategy is not sufficient, we will introduce security controls designed to stop advanced adversaries

Course authors Erik Van Buggenhout & Stephen Sims (both certified as GIAC Security Experts) are hands-on practitioners who have achieved a deep understanding of how cyber attacks work through penetration testing and incident response. While teaching penetration testing courses, they were often asked "But how do I prevent this type of attack?" With more than 20 labs plus a full-day "Defend-The-Flag" exercise during which students attempt to defend our virtual organization from different waves of attacks against its environment, SEC599 gives students real world examples of how to prevent attacks.

Our six-day journey will start with an analysis of recent attacks through in-depth case studies. We will explain what types of attacks are occurring and introduce the Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) Attack Cycle as a structured approach to describing attacks. In order to understand how attacks work, you will also compromise our virtual organization "SyncTechLabs" in our Day 1 exercises.

Throughout days two through five we will discuss how effective security controls can be implemented to prevent, detect, and respond to cyber attacks. Some of the topics we will address include:

Detecting and preventing lateral movement through sysmon, Windows event monitoring, and group policies

Blocking and detecting command and control through network traffic analysis

Leveraging threat intelligence to improve your security posture

In designing the course and its exercises, the authors went the extra mile to ensure that attendees "build" something that can be used later on. For this reason, the different technologies illustrated throughout the course (e.g., IDS systems, web proxies, sandboxes, visualization dashboards, etc.) will be provided as usable virtual machines on the course USB.

SEC599 will finish with a bang. During the "Defend-the-Flag" challenge on the final course day you will be pitted against advanced adversaries in an attempt to keep your network secure. Can you protect the environment against the different waves of attacks? The adversaries aren't slowing down, so what are you waiting for?

Course Syllabus

SEC599.1: Knowing the Adversary, Knowing Yourself

Overview

Our six-day journey will start with an analysis of recent attacks through in-depth case studies. We will explain what's happening out there and introduce the APT Attack Cycle as a structured approach to describing attacks. In order to understand how attacks work, you will also compromise our virtual organization "SyncTechLabs" during the day's exercises.

Exercises

One click is all it takes...You will compromise our virtual organization through a series of offensive tasks to mimic that of an adversary or red team, including gaining an initial foothold, performing lateral movement, maintaining persistence, all while remaining stealthy.

CPE/CMU Credits: 6

Topics

Course outline and lab set-up

Current threat and attack landscape

Introducing the APT Attack Cycle

Recent attacks - case studies

Knowing yourself - Understanding your own environment

Understanding and limiting your organization's footprint

SEC599.2: Hindering Reconnaissance and Stopping Delivery

Overview

Day 2 will cover how attackers take their first steps. How do they perform reconnaissance and what can we do to hinder it? The courseware will cover technical controls, but will also touch upon "soft topics" such as security awareness.

After reconnaissance is performed and vulnerabilities are spotted, the adversary will weaponize the payload and deliver it to the target. We will analyze how delivery of the payload can be detected and blocked. We will cover a variety of techniques, including mail-based controls (e.g., SMTP file and URL carving, sandboxing, etc.) and web-based controls (access controls using web proxies).

Exercises

Building our a sandbox using Suricata and Cuckoo

Finding the needle in the haystack using YARA

Deploying PfSense firewall with Squid and ClamAV

Developing eye-candy using Kibana

Controlling scripting with GPOs

CPE/CMU Credits: 6

Topics

Strategies for preventing/detecting payload delivery

End-user security awareness

Leveraging Suricata IDS / IPS

Mail security controls (AV, SMTP file, and URL carving)

Mail attachment sandboxing

Zooming in on YARA rules

Controlling scripts in the enterprise

Web proxy configuration to defeat drive-by downloads

SEC599.3: Preventing Exploitation

Overview

Day 3 will explain how exploitation can be prevented. Attendees will gain an in-depth understanding of current exploitation tactics. We will introduce effective security controls to stop exploitation attempts dead in their tracks. We will assess tools and techniques aimed at protecting both your network and your hosts and applications. Typical items that will be discussed include network authentication, OS hardening, application threat modeling, client and OS patch management, and exploit mitigation techniques.

Overview

Day 4 will continue with discussion about exploit prevention techniques, but we'll also zoom in on persistence techniques typically employed by advanced adversaries and how command and control is established. If adversaries successfully exploit a vulnerability, their next step is to attempt to maintain their access, escalate privileges, and set up a command and control channel.

Overview

Day 5 focuses on stopping the adversary during the final stages of the attack:

How can data exfiltration be detected and stopped?

How can cyber deception be used to slow down and stop advanced adversaries?

How can threat intelligence aid defenders in the APT Attack Cycle?

How can defenders perform effective incident response?

As always, theoretical concepts will be illustrated during the different exercises performed throughout the day.

Exercises

Preparing and planting canaries with CanaryTokens

Detecting data exfiltration using Suricata

Making your honeypot irresistibly sweet

Installing MISP and obtaining threat intelligence

Incident response using GRR

Querying your hosts using OSQuery

CPE/CMU Credits: 6

Topics

Data exfiltration

Planting canaries with Canarytokens

Detecting exfiltration on the network

Vector-oriented defenses

Ransomware

Hacktivists

Cyber espionage

Cyber deception strategies

Honeypots

Leveraging threat intelligence

Patrolling the neighborhood

Monitoring your endpoints using OSQuery

Incident response

Leveraging GRR to respond to incidents in your environment

SEC599.6: Advanced Persistent Threat Defender Capstone

Overview

The course culminates in a team-based Defend the Flag competition. Day six provides a full day of hands-on work applying the principles taught throughout the week. Your team will progress through multiple levels and missions designed to ensure mastery of the modern cyber security controls taught all week long. This challenging exercise will reinforce key principles in a fun challenge that will put your new skills to the test in an environment just like the ones you'll be working in when you return to your jobs.

CPE/CMU Credits: 6

Topics

Applying previously covered security controls in-depth

Reconnaissance

Weaponization

Delivery

Exploitation

Installation

Command and control

Action on objectives

Additional Information

Laptop Required

As the course leverages the SANS OnDemand platform, the labs will be browser-based. The following are key requirements for optimal lab experience:

Operating System

Students must bring a laptop to class running any of the following OS families:

Windows 7, 8.1 or 10

MacOS Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan or Sierra:

Linux-based distributions could work, but this will depend on your exact distribution

For troubleshooting reasons, please ensure you have local administrator privileges to your laptop

Browser

An up to date version of the following browser families is supported:

Microsoft Edge

Google Chrome

Mozilla Firefox

Hardware

x86-compatible or x64-compatible 2.0 GHz CPU minimum or higher

4 GB RAM minimum with 8 GB or higher recommended

Ethernet adapter (a wired connection is required in class; if your laptop supports only wireless, please make sure to bring a USB Ethernet adapter with you)

10 GB available hard-drive space

During the course, you will be connecting to a network filled with security experts! As a best practice, do not have any sensitive data stored on the system. SANS is not responsible for your system if someone in the class attacks it during the course.

By bringing the right equipment and preparing in advance, you can maximize what you will see and learn, as well as have a lot of fun.

If you have additional questions about the laptop specifications, please contact laptop_prep@sans.org.

Who Should Attend

Security Architects

Security Engineers

Technical Security Managers

Security Operations Center Analysts, Engineers, and Managers

IT Administrators

Individuals looking to better understand how advanced persistent cyber adversaries operate and how the IT environment can be improved to better prevent, detect, and respond to incidents

What You Will Receive

32GB USB 3.0 stick that includes the key solutions built through the course

A mail sandbox solution

An open-source IDS/IPS system

An ELK stack for data visualization and dashboarding

An open-source firewall with built-in web proxy capabilities

Hands-on Training

SEC599 leverages the SANS OnDemand platform, where attendees will be able to complete more than 20 labs in the course using a full-fledged browser environment. This eliminates possible issues with hardware and software compatibility by spooling up a "per-instance" virtual environment for each exercise mimicking that of a real-world production environment. Each student will be sandboxed into a unique instance providing domain isolation and preventing other students from impacting their environment.

Author Statement

"After writing and teaching many advanced penetration testing and exploit development courses over the past 10 years, I started to see a trend developing. Often, over half of the students in each class were not actually penetration testers or those who would be writing 0-days. In fact, they most often worked in a defensive role and were coming to these courses to learn about the techniques used by attackers so that they could better defend their networks. This led to our idea to write a course that focused on teaching just enough of the offense to demonstrate the impact, and then focus the majority of the time on implementing controls to break the techniques used by adversaries and red team testers."

- Stephen Sims

"During my InfoSec career, I first focused on penetration testing for more than five years, then I shifted my focus more and more to the world of incident response. That's when I started observing the need for a structured approach to Cyber Defense. Single, stand-alone solutions, tools, and techniques will only get us so far. If we want to stop advanced adversaries effectively, we have to ensure we have a defense in-depth approach where we can implement security controls that counter each and every one of their attacking moves. SEC599 arms defenders with an in-depth understanding of how advanced adversaries are attempting to penetrate organizations. The APT Attack Cycle will provide in-depth technical insight into how attacks work from start to finish. Both Stephen Sims and I have extensive experience in penetration testing and incident response, which makes us ideally positioned to develop this course. I personally am VERY excited about this course, as I believe it fills a gap in the Cyber Defense curriculum. The course is ideal for IT professionals who want to understand how adversaries are currently compromising IT environments and how every one of their moves can be prevented, detected, and even responded to. I strongly believe in learning by applying, so the course is designed to be highly hands-on. Throughout the week, students will complete 20+ labs and exercises, culminating in a full-day 'Defend-The-Flag' exercise on Day 6."

- Erik Van Buggenhout

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